


He Who Tries

by GeneralLoki



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Combat, M/M, Reaper76 - Freeform, meeting again for the first time, mostly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 09:55:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7356400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeneralLoki/pseuds/GeneralLoki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The man called Reaper had a poor sense of time until it all caught up with him at the sight of a familiar form. Either man wore a mask, but there was no mistaking the other. He was a man with unclear desires, but everything seemed crystal clear when he crossed with Morrison for the first time since the incident.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Who Tries

There was a way that the air seemed to curl around him—shrinking back and shying away from making contact. Instead the space filled in with more of that uncomfortable aura. The sense of something being Not Right hovered around his form in such a way that other agents and actors on the stage wouldn't stand too close. Their nerves were rightly on edge when tufts of smoke whorled away from the face of his mask and rolled off his shoulders. Something about working with the man only labeled Reaper sent even the most experienced in Talon or whatever group contracted him into anxiety. 

He could admit that meetings with leaders in these groups were as short and frank as possible. Nobody liked him in the room for long. His desires would be heard out and likely granted. People like this didn't dig around for a man like Reaper for an easy job that any one else could do. And his interests often lined up with high profile targets anyway. Most of the time, it was win-win. He made a killing, took out who he wanted, lined up for the next shot at another. To get in someone's face and do them in on his own set off a little spark he wouldn't call joy, but maybe it was something like that. 

Nothing seemed to be so simple and tangible anymore. 

A wild void, time slipped through his fingers—something hardly noticed until he crossed shots with an old comrade—the age in their faces striking him. Years. Years of difference and still that blast felt days old and like stretch of restitching, of piecing things back together, namely himself. Whatever remained as it were. 

A Talon job brought the remnants called Reaper to an old Overwatch stomping ground—a street littered with fading propaganda and graffiti much younger. Peeling posters dotted the crumbling walls that his boots traveled past force. Patterns of foot falls directed his arms, in turn his guns into an adjoining ninety degree corner turn—blasting the oncoming force carelessly. Remains spattered the stone pathways and Reaper carried on. The street opened up to a wider meeting point—old apartment buildings leaning into the loop. Orange lights flooded the dark streets with a wash of artificial and unpleasant color. If anyone were home, most were smart enough to play dead. 

Softly from somewhere far and near discordant notes floated on the air—a piano player too aggressive and too out of tune to care anymore. Musing on the drunken state of the player with no care for gunshots in their own neighborhood, Reaper scanned the area. The player couldn't be his mark and yet he felt an urge to make them one. Almost amused with that thought, he found a laugh trickling from his mouth. 

_I'd be doing his neighbors a public service at this point._

Laughter rattled out of a throat dry from a night of silent slaughter. His own echo paired with the heavy key strokes. Shoulders shook. He found himself carrying on, but only a few steps. The laughter stopped. A figure stood across the pavement from Reaper. They seemed to watch each other—only the hood of a parked car between them. Neither moved fast, but the gray-haired masked man tightened his grip on his rifle. 

Everything struck his mind in an instant and it hit hard. Little pieces puzzled together in his thoughts. He knew this. He knew the way this man had his shoulders squared, the way he shifted his weight at the hip, his grip on a weapon. He knew this old man in front of him, now pointing his gun at him—aimed at his chest. Reaper spread his arms out, almost welcoming the shot. 

Dissonant echoing music marked the first words they exchanged this year. 

“Let me guess: Here to play hero?” Reaper said first, the sound of a smirk ringing in his tone.

The soldier across from him hesitated, grip still tight. Had he noticed too perhaps? In all this? Unlikely. “Someone's gotta do the job and take you out.” 

Even through a mask, he knew that voice. The way he curved his words, he could almost still hear the way they used to twist around the sound of his name—the old one. That was something he hadn't thought about in awhile—it kind of pissed him off as much as it churned up everything else. He felt sick. 

“Hardly talking like much of a hero anymore,” Reaper taunted back. He shifted his stance, more ready, like he might spring at any second. The soldier did the same in return, shoulders so tense Reaper could almost see the pressure. He'd seen enough of the man's back to know that tension well. 

That “anymore” at the end of that stalled him. Maybe he was piecing it together finally. He'd always considered him kind of slow—a good boy, a pretty face, marketable, likeable, but god was he slow on the uptake when he needed to be. Then again, what was left of him like this behind a new mask and wrapped in a disguise that had become just as much himself now. 

That familiar voice coiled around a single word in a way that took him back years—struck with unwanted nostalgia. 

“Reyes...?” 

Reyes shifted the grip of his guns to clawed fingers, hanging dangerously by the trigger guard partially just so he could clap his palms together a few times. “Congratulations Morrison. Feels good to remember something at your age, doesn't it?” 

Without any face visible to read, Reyes judged Morrison by body language alone—something the other man wasn't opening up so freely. But that twitch in his fingers said it hurt. It had to hurt a little. If it didn't wound him, then he might have to make it. 

“What do you think you're doing?” Morrison almost demanded and yet there it was—that hint of bitter betrayal.

“Are you really so surprised? After everything? Don't play with me like this. It's kind of pathetic,” Reyes almost spat back at him. He felt his guns spilling from his fingers and had to readjust. The movement jolted Morrison's aim fixed more firmly on his chest. A fraction of him ached for him to just fire already. 

The music in the distance felt softer, more reasonable. The player had to be giving up by now. Only a couple of angry old dogs needed to be up barking at 2am. 

“You were dead and I—“ 

“ _We_ were dead. But here we are. I'll do you the favor of finishing the job.” 

Morrison's gaze seemed to avoid him now, but he understood that cue. Words like that came with action. It helped him brace as Reyes jumped up onto the hood of the car between them, one arm held out loosely to blast the spot where Morrison stood—the old soldier twisting out of the way of gunfire, leaving it to spatter loudly against the pavement. Morrison kept in backward motion, curving toward the backside of the car, but taking a moment to scatter a few shots Reyes' way. 

In return Reyes made a show of turning to a swirl of smoke—form incomplete as it usually felt—only a smog of black cloud left of him as the shots phased through him. It was a sensation both felt and not—maybe one served more in the recesses of memory than in physical reality. The move so surprised Morrison that he barely moved—it was more like his feet forced him into a retreat of new cover—a nearby alleyway. Maybe out of fear—he fired. 

“What the _hell_ happened to you, Reyes?” he asked almost accusingly this time. Reyes felt that slight tremble in his voice from his place where shots tore into the back of the car now at his rear. The sound of the car alarm hammered briefly before it croaked its last. The piano stopped somewhere.

Reyes became more whole once again—boots planted firmly on the slightly slick streets. Here he stood, a wall between himself and Morrison again. His arms hung heavily at his sides. “Why don't you tell me? Tell me what happened. You'd know before, wouldn't you?” Reyes snapped back at him. He took a step forward. He felt his throat boiling. 

Morrison and his rifle peered around the corner his way, Reyes took a step forward. On that silent note something rang out across the street. Both only had an instant to look aside, but that second immediately filled Reyes with gunfire—his form eaten away by the blasts of an opposing security force. Shots chewed apart his armor and coat, tore into his throat already burning. He heard faintly, the sound of Morrison calling out his name. A short, deeply concerned, familiar “Gabe” in a sea of shots that died down as soon as his legs gave out. 

He hit the floor hard, without any sense for whether or not it hurt entirely . Gunfire stopped. Vaguely he felt hands on his shoulders—what remained of his shoulders. Through his mask he could see Morrison at his side, trying to lift him up, trying to do something. Words blurred. Feather-light, he felt the other's hand grasp his own. 

“You can't do this again,” Morrison must have said. He must have said it urgently. He could taste it. “For god's sake, Gabe. Don't go like this.” 

Every word felt more vital, like it hurt. Reyes did want it to hurt a little after all. It only seemed fair somehow. 

With this much damage he couldn't hold form for much longer. Maybe just long enough to try and watch the face behind the mask—to guess at his expression, at how much older he looked. It hurt like hell. Seconds passed in a slow drizzle. He couldn't keep himself together any longer and could only afford a few words as he turned to smoke right through Morrison's fingers. 

“Don't be so upset. You're going to be seeing more of me than you can stand.” 

With that the trail of smoke coursed away from the scene, leaving Morrison empty handed.


End file.
